Duke Ellington Essay

Paulina Martinez Jazz History Essay 1 30 September 2017 Jazz Improvisation To improvise is to adjust the sound or tone of something right then and there, to make it up and change it as you go. In Jazz two artist that played an important role in Jazz improvisation were Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke. Armstrong because he redefined the sound of the trumpet, setting high standards for upcoming artists, and Beiderbecke because he founded a cool school sound of Jazz. Louis Armstrong started playing

Joining a powerful musical concept to an expansive technique, Cuban-born, New York-based pianist/composer Aruan Ortiz releases the second solo album of his career, 20 years after Impresión Tropical, his 1996 debut CD recorded in Madrid, Spain. The abysmal evolution observed really makes me happy and wonder how much this creative can contribute to the current elasticity of jazz. Lately, he has been a ubiquitous presence in the creative New York scene, appearing at the side of folks such as Michael

Who were the people that contributed to the musical life and industry in America—more specifically in vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley—during the 1880s to 1930s? Who created the music? Who performed on the stages and in recordings? Who helped to define American popular music? Some would say it was immigrant Jews. I would say it was immigrant Jews and immigrant Irish. My research focuses on the Irish immigrant and Irish-American presence in the music production of Tin Pan Alley and Vaudeville in the late

Billie Holiday “I’m always making a comeback but nobody even tells me where i’ve been’’ stated Billie Holiday. Billie Holiday was one of the greatest jazz vocalists of her time. She had a music involved childhood, a career in jazz music and also a unique element to her career. In fact, Holiday’s love for music started when she was very young. Billie Holiday was born on April 7, 1915 and died on July 17, 1959. She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but she grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Her

Throughout African American history, especially during slavery music has been used as a coping mechanism to assist one with enduring hardship and opposition. Music specifically jazz and the blues can have many boundless effects on one’s life. In this case, in Sonny’s life, music was his only source of hope and strength to redemption. “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin is a thought-provoking reading, it was written in the first person narrative, in which the narrator was talking about his younger brother

On April 22 of 2016 I was able to go see James Bay perform at the Fox Theatre in Oakland. Last summer he played at City of Trees which I was also able to go to, so when I heard that he was going to be playing near by again, I jumped at the opportunity to see him. Although his music is more along the lines of being a mainstream genre, when playing live Bay really exposes his talent. Bay is an English singer songwriter with a sort of indie rock style of music. It is catchy and enjoyed by mostly a

Charles White Jr. was born in Chicago on April 2, 1918 to the parents of Ethel Gary and Charles White Sr. At a young age, White realized his passion for art and was only fueled more when one day after school he met art students from the Art Institute of Chicago who taught him how to mix paint. Not too long after did White begin to skip school because of discrimination and got a job working for the Regal Theater, meeting many other black artists who influenced him to be an artist; White was even

Several dialectics are at play in James Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues” including a dialectic between the narrator and his beloved brother Sonny involving their opposing responses to the sense of oppression and limitation that arises from living in Harlem. This dialectic and its resolution closely parallel Baldwin’s masterful use of Blues, Jazz, and Gospel music. We follow the narrator and his brother Sonny as they traverse the complexities of their individual and interconnected Harlem lives

Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin is about the suffering two brothers from Harlem try to reoncile with. The story is by The Narrator Sonny’s older brother, who is unnamed. As the reader, we only have the narrator's, perspective, memories, and thoughts to understand Sonny’s blues and how Sonny’s blues is the reflection of the African American community and its suffering in Harlem. Using the reader's response to analyze this story, James Baldwin using Suffering as the main theme to prove that, to appreciate

Transformation in the Story, “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin Introduction The story, “Sonny’s Blues” is not simply the story of the experience of the narrator. Rather, it is a story that captures his inner transformation as well the spiritual progression that his previous experiences of death and loss have influenced. Yes, it is. In that, the story starts as an identified or unfamiliar algebra teacher tries to familiarize with something at the same time riding the passageway to school. The teacher